LOS ANGELES Juan Pierre found himself in an unusual position during Saturday night’s game. When Jason Schmidt threw his first pitch at the San Diego Padres, Pierre was on the bench.

Dodgers manager Grady Little picked Saturday night as the right time to rest his slumping outfielder and give him a chance to regroup. The decision ended a streak of 184 consecutive games in which Pierre has started. The last time he was not in a starting lineup was on Sept. 18, 2005 when he played for the Florida Marlins.

Pierre did enter the game as a defensive replacement in the eighth inning.

“The man just needs a break to start the game,” Little said. “I made the decision because it’s the right thing to do at the right time.”

The decision was based partly on Pierre’s career .111 batting average against Jake Peavy, the Padres’ starting pitcher. It also had to do with Pierre’s .186 batting average this season. Little conceded Pierre was not happy with the decision, but then he wasn’t really expecting him to be.

“It’s one of those deals where you might hate me right now, but you’ll love me tomorrow,” Little said.

Pierre took the move in stride and essentially put the blame on himself.

Though he did show signs of breaking out of his slow start by hitting in five consecutive games earlier this week, he went 0 for 5 on Friday.

“I’m a guy that likes to play,” Pierre said. “He’s the manager and I’ve got to respect his decision, which I do. I don’t have nobody to blame but myself. If I was doing what I’m supposed to be doing, I would be in the lineup.”

Pierre feels that his slow start is magnified by the fact that he is new to the Dodgers and that everyone is eager to see how he is going to do. He averaged 675 at-bats the past four seasons.

“I went through it last year and it’s one of those things in baseball,” he said. “If you get 600 or 700 at-bats, you’re going to have these kinds of spells.”

HEATING UP

Outfielder Matt Kemp iced down his injured right shoulder Friday and later went out to play catch. It wasn’t a good experience.

Kemp put heat on the shoulder Saturday and played catch.

“Instead of ice we did heat and I did some other things to warm up,” Kemp said. “When I went to training room and put the heat on and did all of the stretches and the exercises, it helped me out a lot. I was very surprised. yesterday I couldn’t throw 40 feet and today I threw about 70.”

Kemp injured the shoulder when he crashed into the right-field wall Monday and was placed on the 15-day disabled list the following day. He is not eligible to come off of the DL until April 24.

TONIGHT

Randy Wolf (1-1, 3.75) opposes the Padres’ Chris Young (1-0, 2.13) at 5:05 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN, KFWB/980 and KWKW/1330 (Spanish).

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